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Upper mantle seismic anisotropy resulting from pressure-induced slip transition in olivine

Nature Geoscience volume 2, pages 73–77 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Seismic anisotropy in the oceanic lithosphere results from flow-induced crystallographic preferred orientation of dry olivine during lithosphere creation. Recent experiments, however, showed that high water activity changes the flow mechanisms of olivine and hence the crystallographic preferred orientation, better explaining the seismic anisotropy in the mantle wedge above subduction zones. Whether changes in the crystallographic preferred orientation of olivine are unique to the effects of water has become controversial and is critical to resolve. Here we report low-stress, high-strain experiments on typical dry mantle rock at high pressures and temperatures, showing that at ∼3 GPa, pressure induces the same profound transition in olivine crystallographic preferred orientation that is produced by high water activity at lower pressure. One important consequence for global tectonics is that alignment of fast seismic waves parallel to trenches beneath subducting slabs probably reflects entrainment of sub-lithospheric mantle in the direction of subduction, rather than trench-parallel flow as interpreted at present. From the large variety of crystallographic preferred orientations in olivine in both experiments and natural rocks, we infer that in addition to the pressure-induced changes in olivine slip systems implied here, there are probably further changes in slip systems at higher pressure and temperature.

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Figure 1: Unpolarized FTIR spectra of olivine before and after the experiments.
Figure 2: Pole figures: Equal-area upper hemisphere projections of olivine crystal axis distributions.
Figure 3: Inverse pole figures of the same data as shown in Fig. 2.
Figure 4: Seismic anisotropy calculated from fabrics shown in Fig. 2.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S. Karato, Z. Liu, P. G. Silver and J. Zhang for helpful discussions, F. Forgit for providing technical assistance during the preparation of the sample assemblies and D. Mainprice for an excellent constructive review. This work was supported by the Korea Meteorological Administration Research and Development Program under Grant CATER 2008–5112 (H.J.), and partially by the BK21 at SEES, SNU. Experimental work in H.W.G.’s laboratory was supported by NSF grants EAR-0552011 and EAR-0652960.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul National University, 311 Ho, 25-1 Dong, San 56-1, Sillim-dong, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-747, Korea

    Haemyeong Jung & Won Mo

  2. Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA

    Harry W. Green

Authors
  1. Haemyeong Jung
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  2. Won Mo
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Contributions

H.J. and H.W.G. conceived the idea. H.J. conducted the high-pressure experiments. H.J. and W.M. analysed the CPO of olivine using EBSD and the water content of olivine using FTIR. H.J. wrote the first draft; H.W.G. revised it extensively. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Haemyeong Jung or Harry W. Green.

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Jung, H., Mo, W. & Green, H. Upper mantle seismic anisotropy resulting from pressure-induced slip transition in olivine. Nature Geosci 2, 73–77 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo389

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